The present invention generally relates to systems and methods of bread making, and more particularly to systems and methods for making baguette-style breads.
The traditional baguette made by hand is characterized by a hard crust of a rich, dark caramel color and a cream-colored inside formed by large irregular cells, or holes in the baguette's internal cell structure, which has a moist and chewy texture. The baguette is generally recognized as originating from Vienna some time in the mid-19th century after the introduction of steam ovens, which helped provide the characteristic hard crust and internal cell structure commonly associated with the French baguette.
In the modern age, bakers have turned to automation of various stages of the bread making processes in order to help manufacture breads in greater quantities. However, the use of industrial baking equipment has been faulted for failing to more closely match the visual and taste characteristics of a traditional baguette. In particular, bread dough is difficult to divide and mold into the elongate, thin shape needed for the traditional French baguette, for example.
According to some techniques, during formation of the dough into the elongate cylinders, or billets, the dough is mechanically stressed, damaging the protein structure established during fermentation of the dough and causing fermentation gases to escape from the dough. This reduces the water retaining capability of the dough and generally negatively impacts the cell structure, taste, and texture of bread baked from the dough.
In order to allow the protein structure to re-establish itself following mechanical stressing, some bread makers have employed one or more proofing, or resting steps during or following bread formation. In lieu of proofing, other bread makers have proposed various stress-free methods of molding and dividing dough to replace the proofing steps. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 6,117,472 describes a stress-free method of forming dough and the elimination of intermediate and final fermentation steps. These conflicting approaches to fermentation, or proofing, and the use of various methods of forming, leave room for improvement in making breads of superior quality.